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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

That has always been true, and for everywhere. However very few countries are anywhere near as accepting for foreigners as the US as a whole despite the many who are not. Canada is just as accepting from what I can tell - I don't know enough about Australia to know. Most other countries are far worse - though many will not admit it just how bad their country is.

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Sadly Australia is very welcoming to foreigners until you get about 50km out of the major cities. Our xenophobe political party (One Nation) has had a significant rally in the last few years, to the point where by some measures it is the second largest party.

That's probably all that matters TBH. If you can attract top talent to major cities where top schools, research firms, and companies in general, what does the opinions and attitudes of people 50km away matter?

Ok It probably matters during elections and the policies that lead up to them (must appease the rural vote with mostly symbolic and emotionally wretching anti-immigrant rhetoric) but cities need skilled (and unskilled) labour and when they get what they need they stand to generate a lot of money (re taxes to the policy makers from earlier).

> what does the opinions and attitudes of people 50km away matter?

Well, using Texas as an example, it's those people 50km away that win elections. Of course, gerrymandering helps, but even with large metro areas leaning left, there's enough of those 50km away that swings that lean to the right.

Ignore the people in the rural areas as your own peril

It's the same thing in every country.

Big cities and metropolitan areas are very progressive and welcoming to well educated foreigners, and the countryside is filled with racist idiots who live in fear of something they only know from the television

It’s the same in the US. Proximity to a city correlates strongly with all forms of openness. It holds nationwide. There aren’t really blue or red states, just predominantly urban or rural ones.

I still don’t quite understand why. The contact hypothesis makes some sense but can that explain the whole urban rural divergence?

Rural populations will even vote hard against their own interests in other areas over culture war stuff.

There's more pressure in rural areas to conform in the sense that people know people that can make your time more difficult if you don't. If you get blacklisted in the bush gl finding any work and that's a survival issue. In the city you can walk around anon most of the time and people are more used to others being different. Dump a new high rise of foreigners that don't speak the local language in a metro area and no-one will notice. Do that in the bush and LOL.

The dilution factor is something I hadn’t thought about.

Dump a few hundred foreigners in a town of 5000 and that’s very noticeable and some people will find it jarring. Dump ten thousand foreigners in a metro of three million and nobody will notice.

The point about conformism and exile cost is good too. Cities present endless options for social circles and employment. Little towns not so much.

To expand on this, consider the historic importance of culture for improving survival odds and thus conformism as a natural consequence. So it makes sense that people in smaller groups would exhibit associated tendencies, and also that people who exhibit those tendencies would tend to gravitate towards smaller groups.

Somewhat related recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46989124

To be fair, they're still welcoming to foreigners in the bush, just as long as they're white. Rural Australia has many towns that have a strong Italian or Greek heritage (for example).

One Nation are flat racist rather than xenophobe, I think.

And it's being pushed by our billionaires for some reason. You'd think Gina would want cheap immigrant workers on her mines

The problem with billionaires is that they truly have more money than they need. The only thing left for them to pursue is power. Cheap labor only helps them get more money. Racism on the other hand can be used to justify the destruction of democratic institutions which are a billionaires only competition.

> A CEO, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant sit down together at a table upon which there is a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, then whispers in the ear of the blue-collar worker "Hey, I think he wants your cookie."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46701886

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